


Blessings

by whatthefoucault



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Baking, Brooklyn, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Continuing Education, Dancing, Disability, Drawing, Food, Loki is a good pal, M/M, New York City, Recovery, Sleepy Cuddles, Slice of Life, Soft Stucky, Therapy, cocktails, the first person to correctly guess all the cameos in the story gets a prize, the frostmaster is brief but very soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 19:09:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14754593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatthefoucault/pseuds/whatthefoucault
Summary: At last, the shape of life after everything had begun to come into focus.  Bucky and Steve consider the next steps, and some friends come to visit.





	Blessings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lucidnancyboy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucidnancyboy/gifts).



> Written for the Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2018, inspired by and featuring illustrations from the truly amazing [Jessie Lucid.](http://lucidnancyboy.tumblr.com) Go check out all of their stuff and lavish well-deserved praise upon them!
> 
> The title for this is lovingly borrowed from the gorgeous "Count Your Blessings" by Mattiel, which you can find on [the soundtrack](https://open.spotify.com/user/samikelsh/playlist/7H692p2SXWIerudv95nEaz).

“Introduction to Astronomy?” Steve slid the prospectus across the table. Bucky glanced down at the stock photo of a diverse group of happy nineteen-year-olds in sweatshirts, carrying handfuls of books.

“Yeah, I dunno,” said Bucky. 

“It's all about spaaaace,” Steve sang to him. He was batting those damn eyelashes of his, which Bucky would surely resent if he did not love seeing Steve relaxed enough to flirt.

“Space loses some of its appeal when people from space try to kill everyone you love and your planet, all that shit,” countered Bucky.

Steve nodded. “What was that game you were playing on the computer the other day? You know, the one where you kept crashing the…”

Bucky blushed. “... Kerbal Space Program,” he said.

“Uh-huh.”

There were so many reasons this was a bad idea, he thought: for one thing, his kid sister had admirably proven herself as the smart one in the family (still an eminent name in her field, no less), lots of Steve's friends were actual scientists with actual science degrees, and some of Steve's other friends came from actual space.

And then there were the actual reasons this was a bad idea, like the way he would easily be the oldest person there who was not teaching, and that that made him conspicuous. Bucky did not enjoy situations in which he was conspicuous; they typically did not end well.

“What did the art faculty say about transferring credit from your first year?” asked Bucky.

“Yeah,” said Steve, with a long, heavy sigh. “Turns out there's... kind of a statute of limitations on that sort of thing.”

“So it's Life Drawing 101 for you, is it?” Bucky flipped idly through the glossy booklet, pausing briefly at the literature program. “You’re gonna draw circles around the curriculum, pal.”

“Well,” shrugged Steve. “I'm pretty out of practice these days.”

\---

“Can I draw you?” Steve was testing his new eraser, scrubbing viciously against a scrap of sketchbook paper.

“I dunno, _can_ you?” replied Bucky, taking a generous bite of his bagel.

“... yes?” ventured Steve, brushing the rubbery detritus into a tidy pile on the table.

“Well then,” he said. “There you go.”

“Shut up, you know what I mean.” With his pencil tucked behind his ear, Steve looked just as he did in his art school days, the first time around. Granted, thought Bucky, the beard was new, and they were undeniably older, but he was still always Steve, and for that, Bucky was grateful.

“Wait, do you want me to shut up, or do you want me to give you permission to draw me?” Bucky grinned at him. He knew he was being a wise guy, but Steve had always made it so easy.

Steve swatted at him with the sketchbook, which did little more than fan him with a pencil-scented breeze.

Years ago, whenever he had a little time, Steve would flip open his dog-eared and charcoal-smudged sketchbook, and draw. Sometimes he sketched ideas, or the neighbourhood or things in the room, but other times, he enlisted Bucky for life-drawing practice.

Bucky would strike a heroic pose, or a thoughtful pose, or (and this was his favourite) a supine pose, which usually blurred seamlessly into a comfortable nap, dozing off to the comforting scrape of Steve's pencil against the fine paper.

Steve sketched Bucky after school, before Mrs. Barnes or Mrs. Rogers called them to dinner; he sketched Bucky in preparation for art school admissions, eager and full of dreams; he sketched Bucky on lazy weekend afternoons after he left school, so he would not forget how.

(He sketched a self-portrait once, and only once; a grudging acquiescence in the face of Bucky's relentless protestations that Steve had so many goddamn drawings of him, but he had no drawings of Steve. Something for Bucky to remember him by when Steve became a famous illustrator and had no more time for a two-bit paperpusher like Bucky, he had said. Because Bucky loved that dumb beautiful face more than anything in the world, he had thought but not said.)

“All right, all right,” Bucky conceded at long last, applying a thick swirl of cream cheese to the second half of the bagel. “How do you want me?”

Steve blushed, clearing his throat.

“You don't have to do anything special,” Steve assured him, pressing the tip of his pencil to his tongue. “But if you're still in the mood, after dinner…”

“I'm gonna hold you to that,” replied Bucky, mesmerised by the flutter of Steve's eyelashes as he cast his gaze down to the page and began to work.

“I was hoping you would.” An intimate silence fell between them, save for the soft scratch of Steve's careful sketching.

\---

“So... I'm taking a class,” said Bucky, twisting the fabric of the heavy woven cushion between his fingers. “Writing, uhh... class. I think.”

“Good for you!” Beth beamed at him, hands clasped in delight. Behind her, he could see that someone, possibly Beth herself, had scribbled out several lines on the glass of her PhD certificate frame, which now read that the University of Badass had conferred upon Beth Saffitz the designation of Doctor of Feelin' Feelings.

Thursday was Therapist Day.

“Yeah.” He nodded, with a tight-lipped smile.

“Oookaaay, you don't sound convinced.” Beth crossed her arms. 

“I... I don't know if I'm smart enough anymore,” he said. Sharing was still a challenge. “How the hell am I supposed to keep up with these kids?”

“Hey,” protested Beth. “Look, I know your current life experience is probably a bit skewed by the number of showoffs with multiple PhDs you know, but you're selling yourself short. You've been through things most people couldn't begin to imagine. And you've _been_ writing for years, haven't you? The notebooks?”

“That's different,” he countered, “personal.”

“And besides,” she continued, “lots of those kids are probably at least a bit stupid.”

Bucky shrugged. The more he thought about the prospect of shuffling into a college classroom with a gaggle of sprightly nineteen-year-olds, the more he felt as though he belonged there about as much as he belonged on the moon.

“College is nothing like it looks on TV, okay?” Beth told him. “You don't have to make friends with the people in your class. You don't even have to _talk_ to the people in your class. And you're not going to be the only one there who's older. You're what, like, my age?”

“I'm over a hundred,” he said.

“... I mean _technically_ , but you're what, like, actual-years thirty-five?” she asked. “Thirty-four? Thirty-six?”

“Something like that,” said Bucky.

“Thirty-seven? Thirty-three?” she continued. “It doesn't matter. You need to not give a fuck about what other people think about what you're doing there. Believe me, they're all shitting themselves about having to do their own grocery shopping for the first time, they're not going to give a fuck about you or what you're doing. Like, worst-case scenario, they'll probably just think you're cool.”

Bucky stared down into his coffee cup. Beth had one of those fancy glass decanters that Bucky was pretty sure cost three times as much as a basic coffee pot. It tasted, like just about any other coffee, just like a cup of coffee.

“I don't think that's true,” he replied. “I used to think I was cool. Steve used to say I was cool. But what the hell did Steve know about being cool? I just... I guess I never would have imagined myself having this chance, you know? I don't want to fuck it up.”

“Listen, if you'd told sixteen-year-old me that I was going to be, like, a superhero therapist apparently, she'd be like, oh my god that means we survive the turn of the millennium!” reasoned Beth. “I mean, she'd also probably be wearing low-waisted jeans that were nowhere near as flattering as she thinks they are. And the lipgloss…”

“I... okay,” said Bucky. Sometimes it was good just to let Beth have a tangent.

“My point is, you end up in places you didn't expect all the time,” she continued. “And maybe writing's a good fit for you.”

Bucky sighed. “Steve's always had this... purpose, you know? I don't think I ever have,” he said, tracing the lip of the now empty coffee mug with his fingertip. “Way before anybody knew who he was, he was out there, all the time, doing the right thing. Usually the right stupid thing, because Steve's an idiot, but he's an idiot with this big heart and this, this... purpose. Saving the world, all that.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” said Beth. “His action figure looks nothing like him.”

“I think they repurposed the mould from the John Cena action figure.” Natasha had bought one when it was released. She liked to take photos of it on instagram. She always tagged Steve.

“Figures,” she replied. “But you know it's okay not to want to have an action figure, right?”

“I don't know who they'd use for my face,” said Bucky. Beth nodded.

“I'm gonna go with Luke Skywalker,” she said, after a moment’s careful consideration. “My point is, you don't _have_ to have a purpose. Sometimes it's enough just to want to be a good person and have a good life.”

“You really think so?”

“I know so, dude,” she told him. “Listen, we're gonna have to wrap it up here for today, but good talk.”

“Yeah, thanks Beth.”

“I feel like we got somewhere today,” she smiled, showing him out. “You learned some things, I learned some things. I feel like I really earned the box of doughnuts I'm going to buy myself for lunch today.”

“Brooklyn Blackout?” he asked.

“You know it,” she said. “Next week. Same bat time?”

“Same bat channel,” he said. Loki was in the foyer, tucking his phone into the front pocket of what looked to be a very expensive suit jacket.

“That's a nice braid, Banksy,” he said, as they passed each other. “I'd say your hair's just about getting as long as my brother's... used to be.”

“Pretty soon I'll be able to do the full Leia buns,” replied Bucky. Loki nodded in that way that people nodded at things about which they knew nothing. “Princess Leia? Star Wars.”

“Please, I'm not a philistine,” replied Loki. “I'm aware of Midgardians' quaint ideas about what space is like.”

“Her hair's amazing,” said Bucky. “Trust me on this one.”

Loki scoffed, but shrugged. It was by sheer coincidence that a recognised super-person of mutual acquaintance should have the appointment directly after his with the same therapist; or perhaps not, he supposed, as there could not have been that many therapists even in a city as big as New York who had a particular interest in the kind of people who tended to be involved when worlds needed saving. It had taken a good few Thursdays to get from “hey, don't I know you from somewhere?” to “I do know you from somewhere, but we're not friends,” to “I guess we are friends, and if you're not doing anything after this I've got a few hours to spare and I suppose I'll let you buy me an iced coffee.” For two people generally wary of socialising with those they did not know very well and probably had reasons not to trust, the company was good.

“I assume you're coming to my partner's DJ night on Saturday?” he asked.

“I... think we're actually going to have company on Saturday,” replied Bucky. It was nice to have a genuine excuse to turn down a social occasion that was likely to consist of the sort of bright lights and loud noises and crowded spaces that would do Bucky's well-being no good at all, while sparing the feelings of his friend.

“You're perfectly welcome to bring your friends as well,” countered Loki.

“Yeahhh, I dunno if it's going to be their kind of thing.”

\---

“We'd love to go to your friend's DJ night!” Shuri beamed with such exuberance it threatened to blow out Bucky's phone screen.

“... really?” replied Bucky.

“An opportunity to go and dance somewhere other than my lab?” she replied. “Of course we'll go!”

“With all due respect,” he began, as diplomatically as he could, “are you sure you'll have time, between diplomatic... stuff?”

Shuri lowered her gaze at him. “Mister Bucky Barnes, are you trying to use your distinguished guests as an excuse not to have a night out?”

“Hey Buck, how the hell do I manage to get sauce down the front of my every time you make spaghetti?” Steve strode in from the kitchen, tossing his sauce-stained shirt into the laundry basket as he went. “Oh, Your Highness!”

Steve hastily grabbed a throw blanket from the back of a chair to shield his nipples from royal view, and with a lightly stunned expression still cemented to his face, hastily attempted to cross his arms in deference to the royal presence in the room, whilst simultaneously retaining his modesty.

“Dont worry, I'm not snapchatting this,” Shuri laughed. “Apparently, you boys are taking us dancing.”

“Shuri, are you tormenting our friends?” they could hear T'Challa shout from somewhere in Shuri's lab.

“Brother, I wanted to let you know I spoke to our hotel in New York,” she shouted back to him, “and I am having the concierge send up a small cardboard box for you to sleep in.”

“... I hate you.”

Shuri gleefully displayed her middle finger to him. Bucky smiled nervously. Steve was desperately reaching for his shirt.

“We... look forward to repaying your generous hospitality,” he said.

“And I look forward to seeing whether or not your bagels live up to the hype,” replied Shuri. “No pressure.”

“Thanks,” said Bucky.

“So much pressure,” said Shuri, her smile radiant with chaotic goodness.

\---

Sleep was not always forthcoming. It had been once, before everything, when Bucky and Steve would snuggle down together in their little bed in their little apartment, sharing because one bed was cheaper than two (and, though neither had yet the words to say, because they simply belonged together). Now, snuggled down again but older, and sharing because the love that had germinated between them so long and so slowly and whose roots had wound themselves around their hearts had finally been granted leave to blossom, sleep was becoming easier again. The nightmares still reached for him sometimes, and Steve too, but they grew fewer and further between, with the comfort that came from knowing they were together, and safe.

Sometimes Bucky had to be very sure that this life was not all just a dream, a vivid feat of the slumbering imagination as he waited to be pulled from the fridge again the next time the bad guys needed another dirty job done. Sometimes it was still just hard enough to believe that he had been granted - or seized, eagerly and with both hands - this level of good fortune.

He was apt to remind himself that it was doubtful that even his dreaming imagination would have been so cruel as to give him a happily-ever-after that took years to achieve. On the other hand, he thought, if he could have imagined a sentient adolescent tree, a boy who made spiderwebs, and cauliflower pizza, perhaps he had a future in creative writing after all.

“Hey Steve?” He hoped he had not yet fallen asleep.

“Mmmm,” mumbled Steve, rolling onto his side. “What.”

“Is this a bad idea?”

“What, taking the Wakandan royal family to a bar?” asked Steve, shifting closer to Bucky, reaching out to scratch gently at his scruffy beard.

“I meant... college.” Bucky leaned into him, the comforting clean scent of that old soap he still managed to find for sale just about lingering on his softly-freckled shoulder. He carefully placed a kiss over one freckle, then each of the others, so none would be jealous.

“Yeah, I know,” sighed Steve, winding his arms around Bucky's waist, “I dunno. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried.”

“Yeah, me too,” said Bucky, mumbled through kisses up from Steve's shoulders, along his neck and through the soft beard that tempered his jaw, “but when has being scared of something ever stopped you from doing it anyway?”

“It hasn't yet,” said Steve, finally succumbing to the giggles, as his lips found Bucky's. “I don't think this is when it's gonna start.”

\---

Bucky liked to work with his hands; it grounded him in ways that purely mindful pursuits were unable to. Meditation, as an exercise in sitting still and clearing his mind, was far more counterproductive. If anything, it amplified that unnerving sensation of being divorced from his body, which still arose from time to time. Work gave him focus outside of himself, a reminder that he could use his hands to do good things - whether it was the rhythmic chopping of parsley and potatoes to make soup, or the slip of a pair of knitting needles as a thick woolen fabric emerged from them as if by magic, or just the softly abrasive drag of a ballpoint pen against notepaper as he wrote out this memory or that, a dream about Steve or a reminder that he still did not like yellow mustard. By contrast, the experience of total stillness was one profound discomfort or another, an opportunity for his mind to remind him of his failures and the reasons he had to be afraid. Meditation, he concluded, was for people who did not have an extensive laundry list of reasons not to want to be left alone with nothing but their own thoughts. He scraped the last of the sticky candied ginger into the bowl, and stirred it into the batter.

“Steve?”

“Yeah?” Steve was sketching at the kitchen table again.

“Are you sure that it's enough of a gesture to give our royal friends... thank you cake?” he asked.

Steve set his pencil and paper down.

“Buck,” he said, his expression as serious as Bucky had ever seen. “Have you ever known anyone who didn't love your mom's sticky gingerbread?”

“... nope,” replied Bucky, carefully tipping the batter into the prepared tin.

“There you go,” said Steve, resuming his drawing.

\---

Predictably, T'Challa floated out almost as soon as he floated in - there were, it turned out, no visits halfway across the world that did not inevitably coincide with diplomatic business - with just enough time to accept a tupperware of cakes for the small entourage of Dora Milaje vigilantly stationed just outside of Bucky and Steve's charming nineteenth-century walkup, but not before asking again when their wedding date would be. It was a fair question, given his regal schedule probably not allowing for masses of spontaneity, but truthfully, neither Bucky nor Steve had yet given thought to a date. He then left the fellas in Shuri's expert care, as she was quite adamant that Bucky's arm be given a check-up.

“Everything still working as it should be?” Shuri asked him, as Bucky shrugged off his jacket.

“It feels like an arm,” he told her, bending and unbending his elbow.

“Of course it does,” she smiled, “I designed it.”

He had been grateful to have a bespoke new arm in the first place, but Shuri had taken to its design with great enthusiasm. Bucky had bristled at first when Shuri referred to him as her guinea pig, but he supposed that if Steve was the face a chemistry experiment, he might as well be the spokesmodel of new advances in biomedical engineering, and something of an advocate for disability rights and awareness in the process, if the kinds of things he retweeted were any indication.

She had been very patient in talking him through her ideas and her work - even if half of it shot clear over his head, having only high school science and technology under his belt, circa 1930something - and had shown him plans for a number of augmentations, which he respectfully declined.

He did not wish to be a weapon, he had told her.

“Have you changed your mind about the wifi hotspot?” she asked, bringing up a holo-schematic over his forearm.

“Are you kidding?” Steve scoffed, bringing in three generous mugs of tea from the kitchen. “I'm imagining people not letting him leave the room because they're right in the middle of a big download.”

“Yeah, that's a bit... the wrong kind of conspicuous,” Bucky agreed.

“When your brother is the King of Wakanda, everyone knows you,” she told him, making a few minor adjustments as she took a long sip of her tea. “I understand how it feels to be conspicuous. You know I could still install a cloaking mechanism that would make your arm look just like your other arm.”

“I don't need to pretend I'm not disabled,” he shrugged.

“And that's exactly why I made sure it looked cool,” she told him with a conspiratorial wink.

\---

It was just about brunchtime when the trio embarked on their whirlwind tour of the city's chewiest bagels, softest knishes, fluffiest pancakes, and most adequate dollar pizza slice. Shuri, despite being a scientific and technologically gifted slip of a girl, had somehow bested both Bucky and Steve in stuffing more carbohydrates into her face than should have been humanly possible. Perhaps it was a superpower, perhaps just the blessing of a youthful metabolism.

Before stopping for lunch - as if they needed lunch - their stroll through the neighbourhood took them past little green parks and bars that would not open for many hours, townhouses and more nail salons than any neighbourhood could possibly sustain, and diners that were likely as old as Steve and Bucky.

“You sure you don't want to do any of the tourist crap?” Bucky asked her.

“You are not really selling it by calling it crap,” she replied, peering into a storefront that appeared to just be two men at minimally-appointed desks, with some abstract neon lighting on the floor. “No. I want to do the city properly. I want to see the things you actually like. I am going to bUY EVERYTHING IN THIS SHOP.”

It was exactly the sort of place neither Bucky nor Steve would normally consider visiting. It was cool. The space was small but open, paneled in blonde wood, the fixtures minimal but tasteful. The shopkeeper seemed indifferent. Over the stereo system came lightly unsettling music that seemed to be performed by a band who had not learned to play their instruments, but proceeded to do so anyway with wild abandon.

“Is this an appropriately regal jumpsuit?” Shuri asked them, gazing intently at a sunflower yellow one-piece. Steve shrugged. He had all the fashion sense of a sink plunger, but he meant well. “Of course it isn't. I'm getting it.”

Shuri tucked the garment under her arm, while Steve scrutinised some wool sweaters, and Bucky took an interest in a display of artisan chocolate bars. For eight bucks a pop, he thought, they ought to have been laced with Himalayan sea salt and vibranium.

“This is perfect! Now everyone will know you are very old,” Shuri smiled, pulling a soft, mottled grey t-shirt from the rack, bearing the word _Vintage_ in vibrant rainbow lettering. She held it up to Bucky, as though attempting to estimate his size.

“Hey, time hasn't been _that_ unkind,” protested Bucky, scrubbing a hand over his several days' scruff. A few silver hairs had begun working their way into his beard, but he wanted very much to believe Steve when he said they made him look dignified. But, as it would be impolite to refuse a simple request from royalty, he dutifully shrugged the shirt on over his own.

“Get the shirt, get the shirt, get the shirt,” chanted Shuri. “Come on, you know you want to! Look!”

Bucky rolled his eyes as Shuri brought out her phone, but could not help but smile when Steve's strong arms curled tight around his waist. Shuri turned the phone to show them: Bucky looked fine, and, okay, the shirt was good, but _Steve_. Steve was radiant, joyous. Whatever their ridiculous life was, it suited him.

“Instagram is about to blow up,” said Shuri, frantically keying in hashtags.

“It's a nice shirt,” Steve agreed, stroking Bucky's arm through the thin material. “Soft.”

The feeling of Steve's hand tenderly caressing him was all the incentive Bucky needed. He leaned slightly into the touch, then slowly began to lift the new shirt back over his head.

“Uhh, Steve, could you - ”

Steve blushed, gripping the bottom hem of Bucky's own shirt, holding it in place as Bucky hoisted the rest of his prospective purchase up and over, shrugging it from his arms.

“So, you gonna get it?” asked Steve.

“Sure,” Bucky agreed. He squinted at the tag. “What the hell?”

Steve and Shuri blinked in unison.

“Ninety-five dollars for a goddamn tshirt,” he said. Ninety-five dollars? That was a solid month's worth of coffee, he thought. What the hell, he thought further, he was spending almost a hundred bucks on coffee a month. Money was stupid.

“I've seen Stark pay that much for a single sock,” replied Steve. “Which _is_ ridiculous, I know. But you deserve to treat yourself. You could wear it on your first day of school.”

Bucky had always thought of himself as a reasonably dapper fellow, at least within his means; these days, however, he tended more towards the utilitarian, the pragmatic and comfortable. In his younger days, his trousers were always impeccably tailored, and he had always had an eye for a good pattern or weave. He had even attempted a moustache once, fancying himself Brooklyn's seventeen-year-old answer to Nick Charles (which he supposed meant that Steve was Nora, at least in his idle, moony-eyed imaginings) but only made it as far as a slightly downy shadow over his upper lip, to which Steve responded with hysterical laughter, prompting him to pick up his razor and keep clean until they were both older, together again, and apparently beards were in.

“You're not just saying that because you think I look like hot stuff,” said Bucky. It was hard to feel like hot stuff most days: in his mind's eye, and the reflections he caught walking down the street, he still felt a little ragged, a little more tired, but at least recognisably himself.

Steve blushed again. One of the greatest joys in Bucky's life was making Steve Rogers blush, like a sun-ripened strawberry right out to the tips of his ears and down his neck. It was beautiful. Some things never changed.

“I'd be lying if I said I didn't, but…”

“Just get the shirt,” interjected Shuri, ostensibly nearing her fill of the sap that Bucky and Steve oozed with delightful regularity. “Or I'm secretly getting it for you, hiding it in your wardrobe when you are not looking, and sometime next week you will be getting dressed and you will find it and you will say ‘but how did this get here? I did not get this shirt, even though everyone agrees it looks very good! Do I have a secret fairy godmother of making me not look like a tired, middle-aged white tumbleweed?’”

“All right, already, I'll get the shirt,” Bucky acquiesced, with only the slightest lingering reluctance.

\---

T'Challa joined them again, just before dinner, which was pizza. Steve had attempted to make a case for ramen, but was quickly shot down (because why give your guests ramen in New York when they can get ramen in Tokyo), and the quartet spent the evening around a rustic wooden table in a lively, candlelit room, tearing apart pie after pie before a short journey to the cozy cocktail bar where, if they had declined to make an appearance after all, Bucky suspected he would never hear the end of it.

The sounds of a sweet female vocalist accompanied by flutes greeted them as they entered bar - some kind of Iranian pop music, if Bucky had to guess, and thus probably a good few decades old. It was less than Bucky had been dreading: less crowded, less dark, less manic. This, he could handle himself in. He could see the fire exit beyond the bar at the back of the room. There were a few quiet couples or small groups already there; mostly human, as far as Bucky could tell, save for that rock-looking friend of Loki's, squirreled away at a quiet corner table with his handsome grey date. There was a squirrel at the bar, casually stuffing her face with (according to the label on the old mason jar that housed them) artisan maple-roasted hazelnuts with yuzu salt. This could be a nice evening, he thought.

“Biscuit! Glad you could make it,” Loki smiled, floating towards the bar. “And you brought America Man, and, ah. Your highness, your majesty.”

Loki crossed his arms in a polite bow.

“Your highness,” replied T'Challa, returning the gesture.

“Put whatever they're having on my tab,” Loki shouted across to the bartender. “This round's on me, so please don't order anything embarrassing.”

Loki wandered back towards the ostentatiously-lit set of turntables at the other end of the room. DJ Jeffbot 3000, as the Grandmaster was apparently calling himself in his guise as a purveyor of interesting tunes, was a real peacock of a man: they had only ever met in passing, but it seemed to Bucky that he was possessed of an otherworldly confidence, amplified by his shimmering wardrobe. 

“Do you do egg creams?” asked Steve. The bartender regarded him with an unreadable expression.

“No one's ever asked me for an egg cream before,” she said, beaming with delight. “That's going on the secret menu.”

Bucky watched as the bartender as she fizzed up the egg cream, shook together a flying dagger, gently topped a rhubarb spritz with prosecco, and expertly stirred a Stockholm mule. For just a moment, Bucky wondered whether it was too late to drop creative writing 101 and sign up for mixology lessons.

Shuri took a long sip of her drink, sliding her phone from her pocket as nonchalantly as she could - which was, of course, very nonchalantly indeed.

“Shuri, what are you doing?” T'Challa asked her.

“Livestreaming, brother. That person is the whitest person in the room,” said Shuri, pointing forcefully at Loki. “And look at their moves!”

There was Loki, who had commandeered a patch of unoccupied floor, hips swinging and arms in the air, striking poses and throwing shapes, joyous and free.

“Hey, wouldya look at that, that's, uhh, that's my boyfriend, everybody!” interjected the DJ, waggling an appreciative finger in Loki's direction. “Apologies to all the single folks out there, but that, uhh, majestic creature there is spoken for.”

Loki immediately ceased his moves, levelled a deadpan stare in the direction of the DJ booth, then shook his head with a soft laugh. He floated back to his drink and his sweetheart, watching his work with affectionate interest. They seemed very happy.

Shuri downed the last of her fizz, and set the empty glass on the bar. “Well, isn't anyone going to dance with me?”

“I could - ”

“Not you, T'Challa,” she clarified, glaring in no uncertain terms at her brother. “No self-respecting woman wants to be seen dancing with their embarrassing older sibling. Mister Rogers, perhaps?”

“She is only saying that because she knows I’m a better dancer than she is,” said T’Challa. “I’ll show you, little sister.”

“I'd be honoured,” said Steve, accepting Shuri’s invitation.

“You're gonna regret this,” Bucky warned her.

“Hey,” protested Steve, as he allowed himself to be led out onto the floor.

Steven Grant Rogers was a great many things - a hero, an artist, a little shit with no sense of self-preservation, a hell of a guy - but the one thing he was categorically not, was a dancer. In the face of an ever changing world, amid shifting paradigms and memes that were outdated by the time Bucky had so much as heard of them, there was comfort to be had in the things that remained constant. One such thing was the immutable fact that Steven Grant Rogers could not dance.

Nevertheless, he was always a gentleman, and a gentleman who would hardly turn down a request from royalty.

There was, however, only so much awkward shuffling Bucky could endure watching before he felt compelled by his own gentlemanly sense of duty to put poor Shuri out of her misery.

“May I cut in?” he asked her.

“I would be very grateful if you did,” she conceded. “I know, I know, don't say you didn't warn me.”

Steve moved with all the shaky coordination and unsteady legs of a freshly born baby goat, but he could just about sway in time with the music if Bucky held him close.

“Remember how we used to go out dancing?” asked Bucky.

“ _You_ used to dance,” Steve reminded him. “I sat in the corner with a book.”

“Uh-huh,” Bucky smiled, bringing his head to rest on Steve's shoulder. “You know, of all the folks in all the clubs in the city, the only person I ever really wanted to dance with was you.”

“Took you long enough to ask me,” replied Steve, just about managing to avoid stepping on Bucky's toes. He understood then how Loki felt when he danced: there was a freedom in abandoning one's self-consciousness to the rumble of a good piece of music, ascending to a weightless state of pure being. He was rusty as hell, but the warmth of Steve’s hand against the small of his back was so comforting that he could not bring himself to give a good goddamn what they looked like.

It was not until the song ended that Bucky noticed how long his pocket had been vibrating. Notification after notification had been rolling in for the past three minutes with no sign of stopping. He looked to the siblings, where Shuri was waving enthusiastically, her phone pointed decidedly in their direction.

“Hey,” he told her, as he and Steve collapsed breathless into each other at the bar, “if I'd known you were gonna be filming that, I'd have put on a damn better show. How bad do you think you can be at dancing badly, Steve?”

“Pretty bad, Buck,” confirmed Steve.

“See?”

Shuri shook her head. “It's all right,” she assured them. “You were both terrible.”

\---

There must have been some very scientifically-recorded reason why the mere act of writing things down made memory stronger, but if there was, Bucky had not learned it. Nevertheless, he had filled a reasonable set of notebooks in the years since he first found Steve and Steve found him and he ran away to find himself again, and they had proven themselves to be of immeasurable value to him. It was not that he often looked back and reread what he had written, as messily scrawled or painful to relive as some of it was: crossed-out half-written thoughts too difficult or too sad to let out, accounts of the things he encountered from day to day, things half-remembered and possibly dreamed into existence, or even simple things like a running list of new foods he had tried. For so long as his own mind threatened at any point to betray him - as unlikely as that might be now - at least this time, he had told himself, he would have a backup copy.

He set two cups of strong, milky coffee on the table for himself and Steve, and opened his notebook to a clean page. He had some things to say about dancing: he wrote about remembering back in the day when he would go dancing with Steve in tow, and take someone like Minnie Abrams out for a spin on the dance floor (which quite conveniently lent Miss Abrams an air of plausible deniability when her mother asked if she had met any nice boys recently, allowing her to continue her love affair with a schoolteacher from Astoria named Carole Ann undisturbed) while Steve would sit at a table like a limp strand of spaghetti. Then he wrote about finally stepping out onto a dance floor just twelve hours ago. How far they had come, he thought, to get from that little apartment in Brooklyn, to another apartment in Brooklyn, the very very long way around.

“What are you smiling about?”

The question surprised him. Bucky raised a hand to his face. Huh, how about that, he thought.

“Was I smiling?” replied Bucky. Steve had his sketchbook in hand, pencil tucked behind his ear.

“Yep,” confirmed Steve.

“Are you drawing me writing?”

“Yep,” Steve repeated.

“Can I see?” asked Bucky.

“Okay, okay, look, it's not done, but... here.”

Steve passed the sketchbook into Bucky's hands. It was incomplete, but unmistakably Bucky, scribbling away in his notebook. He looked peaceful, happy. He was smiling like a goddamn idiot.

It was sometimes hard to see himself in that way: Steve was biased, of course - as was a best guy’s job - but it had taken Bucky this many years to claw back the feeling that his body was his own, something feel positive about, a force for good.

“Is that what I look like?” he asked.

Steve grimaced. “That bad, huh?”

“Oh please.” Bucky levelled the hardest stare he could at Steve. “You have so much talent, and if you don't fucking know it by now I'm just going to have to keep telling you.”

Steve blushed, that deep rhubarb pink, so warm it was almost luminescent.

“I might just keep telling you anyway,” Bucky continued.

“Shut uuuuuup,” protested Steve. Bucky passed the sketchbook back across the table. 

“What do you see when you look at me?” he asked.

“I see you,” Steve smiled softly. “Dummy.”

“Yeah, I know, but.” It was hard to articulate. “ _What_ do you see?”

Steve regarded him carefully.

“I see our history,” he said, reaching across the table, stroking Bucky's softly stubbled cheek with his hand, “and our future. I see the handsomest guy in the universe.”

“Bullshit,” replied Bucky, blushing in spite of himself. “ _You're_ the handsomest guy in the universe.”

“Is that what you see when you look at me?” asked Steve. Bucky turned Steve's hand over in his own, placing a slow, soft kiss into the centre of his palm, then folding it over for safe-keeping.

“I see the goddamn idiot kid I fell in love with,” he said. “I see the biggest heart I've ever known. I see the man I'm gonna marry... as soon as we've done our exams.”

“So you've settled on taking the writing class?” asked Steve, shuffling his chair around to Bucky's side of the table.

“As if I'd unleash you on an unsuspecting community college unsupervised,” replied Bucky.

“Jerk,” said Steve, his assertion belied by a flurry of kisses.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! What a joy this was to write. Do come say hello [on tumblr](http://whatthefoucault.tumblr.com) and be sure to give [the amazing artist](http://lucidnancyboy.tumblr.com) lots of love too!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Blessings](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15334929) by [accrues](https://archiveofourown.org/users/accrues/pseuds/accrues)




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